I turned them all out, and every one jumped in to repair the sledges, redistribute the loads, weed out the least efficient dogs, and rearrange the Eskimos in the remaining divisions.
While this work was going on, Marvin, favored by clear weather, took another meridian observation for latitude and obtained 86 deg.

38'.

This placed us, as I expected, beyond the Italian record, and showed that in our last three marches we had covered a distance of fifty minutes of latitude, an average of sixteen and two-thirds miles per march.

We were thirty-two days ahead of the Italian record in time.
I was doubly glad of the result of the observations, not only for the sake of Marvin, whose services had been invaluable and who deserved the privilege of claiming a higher northing than Nansen and Abruzzi, but also for the honor of Cornell University, to the faculty of which he belonged, and two of whose alumni and patrons had been generous contributors to the Peary Arctic Club.

I had hoped that Marvin would be able to make a sounding at his farthest north, but there was no young ice near the camp through which a hole could be made.
[Illustration: A MOMENTARY HALT IN THE LEE OF A BIG HUMMOCK NORTH OF 88 deg.] About four o'clock in the afternoon Bartlett, with Ooqueah and Karko, two sledges, and eighteen dogs, got away for the advance.